Page:A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More.djvu/158

116 him, and bids him be of good courage, for he came onely to communicate unto him a matter of great importance, I have left behind me, said he, my youngest son James'', to whom you are God-father. Now there is at my eldest son Steven's, a Citizen of Jegerdorf, a certain Chest wherein I have put four hundred and fifteen Florens: This I tell you, that your God-son may not he defrauded of any of them, and it is your duty to look after it, which if you neglect, woe be to you. Having said this, the Spectre'' departed, and went up into the upper rooms of the House, where he walked so stoutly that all rattled again, and the roof swagged with his heavy stampings. This, Cuntius his Friend told to the Parson of the Parish a day or two after for a certain truth.

6. But there are also other several notorious passages of this Cuntius, As his often speaking to the Maid that lay with her Mistriss, his Widow, to give him place, for it was his right; and if she would not give it him, he would writhe her neck behind her.

His galloping up and down like a wanton horse in the Court of his House. His being divers times seen to ride, not onely in the streets, but along the valleys of the field and on the Mountains, with so strong a trot that he made the very ground flash with fire under him.

His bruising of the body of a Child of a certain Smiths, and making his very bones so soft, that you might wrap the corps on heaps like a glove.

His miserably tugging all night with a Jew that had taken up his Inne in the Town, and tossing him up and down in the lodging where he lay.

His dreadful accosting of a Wagoner, an old acquaintance of his, while he was busie in the stable, vomiting out fire against him to terrifie him, and biting of him so cruelly by the foot that he made him lame.

7. What follows, as I above intimated, concerns the Relator himself, who was the Parson of the Parish, whom this Fury so squeezed and pressed when he was asleep, that wakening he found himself utterly spent and his strength quite gone, but could not imagine the reason. But while he lay musing with himself what the matter might be, the Spectre returns again to him, and holding him all over so fast that he could not wag a finger, rowled him in his bed backwards and forwards a good many times together. The same hapned also to his Wife another time, whom Cuntius, coming through the casement in the shape of a little Dwarf and running to her bed side, so wrung and pulled as if he would have torn her throat out, had not her two Daughters come in to help her.

He pressed the lips together of one of this Theologer's Sons so, that they could scarce get them asunder.

His House was so generally disturbed with this unruly Ghost, that the Servants were fain to keep together anights in one room, lying upon straw and watching the approches of this troublesome Fiend. But a Maid of the house, being more couragious then the rest, would needs one night goe to bed, and forsake her company. Whereupon Cuntius finding Rh